Am I the only local who thought that Nevada not being the fastest-growing state in the country is a good thing?

For 19 years, the U.S. Census Bureau reported the Silver State's growth was faster than any other state. Every year, that was cause for celebration. Whoopee. More people are moving here because it's such a great place to live with plentiful jobs. Can't find a job in Rhode Island, dead last in population growth because it's losing people? Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas.

We're No. 1. Yippee!

But Nevada certainly hasn't been No. 1 in dealing with the problems that accompanied our growth. Are our roads and schools the tops? Not even close.

So while state demographer Jeff Hardcastle clearly thought that slip sliding away to No. 2 in population growth was a step backward, I felt a sense of relief that for the first time in 20 years we lost out, to Arizona. Even found myself humming Simon & Garfunkel's "59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)": "Slow down, you move too fast. You got to make the morning last." (Unfortunately, I can't stop humming it.)

Let's encourage people to spend the night and gamble a bit, then show them the road to Arizona. A fine place to live. Let Arizona find unlimited water, reasonably priced places to live and decent schools for all those Californians.

I'm not anti-growth, but I believe that growth doesn't pay for growth and that services don't magically appear just because our population increases. Everybody talks about managing growth, but Southern Nevada doesn't seem to have done such a hot job of managing it, so maybe a tiny break in population growth is not a bad thing.

It's not like we're plummeting. Our growth should nab us another seat in the House after the 2010 reapportionment, so we can look forward to the cutthroat slicing and dicing of political boundaries so that instead of having three people in the House, we'll have four.

The U.S. Census Bureau ranks growth based on percentage increase, not on raw numbers. Nevada's 2006 population surge of 3.5 percent translated to adding 83,228 bodies in a state totaling 2.49 million people.

Arizona's 3.6 percent population growth translated to another 213,311 people, making its population 6.16 million. "We're proud to be No. 1," Jeanine L'Ecuyer, a spokeswoman for Gov. Janet Napolitano, told the Arizona Republic.

But adequate roads, housing, schools and water are part of managing the growth, she said, naming the same problems Nevada is struggling to manage. Traffic is always the first problem cited in any poll in Clark County.

Gov.-elect Jim Gibbons may believe he can find "creative" ways to fund Southern Nevada's bloodthirsty demand for navigable roads while sticking with his pledge of no new taxes and no new fees.

But with an estimated shortfall in highway funding of $3.8 billion, unless he has a magic wand, how will he find the dough? Will he have the gumption to say that road projects in his beloved Northern Nevada must be cut for the benefit of Southern Nevada? I doubt it. Many people outside of Clark County voted for him because he is a Northern Nevadan, and they figured they would be better off with him at the helm than they would be with a Las Vegan.

The last governor from Northern Nevada was Robert List (1978-1982), and Nevada had 800,000 people. You could get anywhere in town in 20 minutes. Interstate 15 was hardly used.

I nearly met my doom there Tuesday, when it seemed likely I would be squished between the trucker that cut in front of me to change lanes then slammed on his brakes and the car riding my bumper. Three sets of screaming tires, as you realize you might be sandwiched to death, increases your heart rate faster than any exercise program. So even just a few fewer cars on our inadequate and dangerous freeways would be a reason to celebrate.

We're No. 2? That's just fine. We've still grown by 25 percent since 2000.

A little pause in the population growth to let our problem solvers catch up isn't such a terrible thing.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0275.